Hi! I’m trying to make some custom wine labels by adding some text to an existing GIF graphic. I have a very old copy of Photoshop on my Mac OS 8 machine; today I bought a copy of Photoshop Elements for my Mac OS X system.
In both cases, I’m having the same problem: the text I add to the graphic looks ragged on the screen and ragged on the printer (an HP PSC 2210; not a PostScript printer). I tried a few different fonts, but they all looked ragged. Do I need to use a PostScript printer in order to get clean text from Elements?
Thanks! Patty
p.s. Does anyone know a way to get the Elements help system to recognize Safari instead of opening Internet Explorer?
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I wonder if… you make a copy of the executable of safari and rename it iexplore.exe… ? Simple thought…
Hi, Ray. Hope you didn’t have any blackout troubles there. Actually, the mac really doesn’t do .exe files. They’re one file type that doesn’t work at all if they are really applications, and when other kinds of files are sent as .exe it usually takes a heap of fiddling to persuade the mac to fool with them.
What is the resolution setting you’re using? When I think "gif" I also think Web. When I think Web, I think low resolution. If you’re trying to get text to print well at a resolution below 150ppi, that’s why it’s looking so ragged. Optimum printing res is between 150 and 300ppi, and the higher you get the res, the better that text will look.
What kind of an original do you have to work with? Any chance it can be changed to a different format and to a higher resolution without too much damage to the clarity of the image itself?
Kyle–Thank you! I’m still pretty new to Mac OS X and had forgotten about that "Use this application to open all documents like this" selection. I changed one of the Elements help files, and they’re all opening automatically in Safari now.
Beth–I think you may be on to something. I did get the graphic from a web site, and it is only 72 ppi. The original graphic has some text on it that’s nice and smooth, but that must be because it was created before the file was reduced in resolution. Unfortunately, because this wine is a surprise, I can’t ask my friends for a higher resolution file. I have to work with this one.
I tried increasing the resolution of the graphic to 150 ppi, and when I entered text, it did look smoother. However, the existing text on the graphic started breaking up on the edges. So…is there some way that I can create a higher-resolution text layer on top of this 72 ppi graphic? (I looked at some of the help files about layers and didn’t see a mention of different resolutions.) Or can I maybe make a separate text file at a higher resolution and then merge it with this graphic?
BTW, the original graphic is actually a bit larger than I need for the label, so thankfully, I can reduce the final graphic in size slightly and tighten things up; I won’t be getting into a situation of blowing it up and making any text irregularities even worse.
Thanks to everyone for your quick and helpful responses!
Hi, Ray. Hope you didn’t have any blackout troubles there.
Barbara ,
Ray said last night that electric would be OFF in his area so they could supply some service Toronto. I have not seen him here so it must still be off in his area.
Three cheers for Ben! Much easier than my way, assuming she has Word or another app that will import graphics.
I’ve got to keep that one, too, because I suspect he just explained how to overcome a problem I’ve had when importing graphics into Word and then trying to get text added where I wanted it to be, not where Word wanted to put it.
Hi all! They finally found a way to balance power with Ontario without disturbing Montreal. So when I woke this morning, it was because the alarm clock went on (and here I was, already preparing a speach for my boss, that would have gone like, "you know, there was this big outage last night…" lol!)
Ray P.S. That’s not my style, btw, I was just kidding!
Barbara, you’re right, Unix does the same. There are no extension under Unix, it opens a file with a certain software because it knows it needs to. Well… I’m getting better each and every day 🙂
Ray P.S. Was just showing my future PowerMac at my best girl friend over lunch. She said, looking at the screen.. Wow! Way better looking than my Windows.. 😉
Ben, you’re a genius! I’m new to Word X, too, having just reluctantly switched from Word 5. (I’m not the only one who still prefers some of the features of Word 5!) Anyway, I had no idea that it had such sophisticated graphics-handling features, such as the "Behind Text" command.
I followed all your instructions, and just printed out a sample label. it looks beautiful! See–I taped it to a wine bottle and am holding it up to the monitor for you. 😉 Word even had the tools I needed (Format > Picture > Size) to reduce the size of the label cleanly. As you mentioned, I was able to position the text box where I wanted it. (Although it moved in sort of big jumps; I couldn’t find any sort of alignment setting to turn off. But it’s pretty much where I want it.)
Beth, thank you also for the idea about double printing. I am using regular paper, so if I let the ink dry completely, that probably would work, too.
I think we’ve all learned a valuable technique here for using Word to integrate text and graphics. Thank you *very* much, Ben!
Patty You said, "Although it moved in sort of big jumps; I couldn’t find any sort of alignment setting to turn off. But it’s pretty much where I want it." To prevent these jumps; Open the Drawing Tool Bar >Draw > > Grid > uncheck "Snap to Grid" Ben
Ben, you’re a genius! I’m new to Word X, too, having just reluctantly switched from Word 5. (I’m not the only one who still prefers some of the features of Word 5!) Anyway, I had no idea that it had such sophisticated graphics-handling features, such as the "Behind Text" command.
I followed all your instructions, and just printed out a sample label. it looks beautiful! See–I taped it to a wine bottle and am holding it up to the monitor for you. 😉 Word even had the tools I needed (Format > Picture > Size) to reduce the size of the label cleanly. As you mentioned, I was able to position the text box where I wanted it. (Although it moved in sort of big jumps; I couldn’t find any sort of alignment setting to turn off. But it’s pretty much where I want it.)
Beth, thank you also for the idea about double printing. I am using regular paper, so if I let the ink dry completely, that probably would work, too.
I think we’ve all learned a valuable technique here for using Word to integrate text and graphics. Thank you *very* much, Ben!
Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.
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